Day 1 of the 6th Annual Advent-ure Calendar

It’s time for our favorite event of the year, our Holiday Drinking Advent-ure Calendar Adventure! If you’ve been on the journey with us the past six years, then welcome back! If it’s your first time here, then please check out this post which explains how the calendar works and who the players are.This year, we didn’t have any specific rules for purchasing the beers. The goal was to find as many new holiday beers as possible because we noticed there were a ton of unfamiliar ones out there. Our team did not disappoint! This year’s lineup is very unique and full of surprises.

Day 1: Ithaca Beer Co. Fuggly Sweater Dark Lager with Ginger and Spices

We’re so excited to start off the calendar with a brand new beer: Ithaca Beer Co. Fuggly Sweater. You know we love Ithaca Beer so we have high hopes for this one. From the website: “Fuggly Sweater is a dark lager brewed to inspire the holiday favorite, gingerbread. The wide range of specialty malts create yummy cookie and cake qualities…ginger is at center stage, and as with traditional gingerbread, a light amount of cloves, nutmeg, and cinnamon round out the spice profile.”

Reflections

Ben: Very pleasantly surprised by this! But also, not really! Surprised because beers with these spices are generally overpowering. Not surprised because it’s Ithaca Beer Co. and they know their shit. Everything is very subtle and balanced. I love that the base beer is a dark lager because I not only love that style in cold weather, but they generally finish rather crisp. You also don’t find many holiday lagers out there. This one’s a definite winner and I’ll be drinking more of these.

Julia: I’m so excited to try a new beer right off the bat and from one of my favorite breweries! I thought upon first sip it was a traditional Christmas Ale, but it’s actually a lager so I was (pleasantly) surprised. It’s super light, but dark in color. It’s easy to drink and you can really taste the ginger but it wasn’t overpowering. I will definitely be adding this to my holiday beer rotation!

Adam: Fuggly sweater is a great way to kick off the latest edition of the advent calendar beer named thing I don’t remember yet (it’s the first day).  I like that despite having all the traditional holiday flavors, Ithaca put them into a lager as opposed to an ale. The flavors of nutmeg and ginger and cinnamon are still prevalent but in a light(er) beer that is imminently drinkable. It’s like a holiday Pacifico. It comes in a pounder can that you can drink and not feel hammered or overly full. A perfect beer for football Sunday’s.

Alex: I feel like Fuggly Sweater is a top notch way to enter into Holiday Beer season.  I believe this is the first year we have had this.  Maybe it’s new?Maybe I’m late to the party.  This beer doesn’t overwhelm you with spices, though the cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger are present.  It’s very easy to drink and on the lighter side of a holiday beer.  I definitely would put this into the rotation.

Scott: We’re back!!!  Ready for another advent-ure to say goodbye to this dumpster fire that was 2020. So I hate to be blunt, but this beer has such a great name and such an uninspiring taste.  It’s fine.  It’s got some spice in the aftertaste with nutmeg sticking out to me, but otherwise I can’t say much else.  It’s not great, it’s not bad, it’s just didn’t bring the excitement I was looking for with beer #1.

Christa: I am so ready for this!! I love the annual beer adventure and was so excited for that little hiss of carbonation when I popped Fugly Sweater open. And…it was a little underwhelming? The beer is pleasant by all means and quite drinkable but not much sticks out. When I was trying to formulate my review, I had to keep taking a sip to remember the taste. It seemed a little flat to me, maybe it was just our can? The nutmeg is the most potent of its promised spices. I say: give it a try, a hard 5, definitely not fugly.

Tony: Back for another year of this great tradition! We’ve got a bunch of new beers on the list this time and very excited to get started. This first one is an interesting dark holiday lager. It has the holiday beer flavors of spices like clove and cinnamon but its still nice and light being a lager. Some holiday beers are so heavy and strong that you only want to drink one or maybe two but with this one its light enough to enjoy drinking multiple. Overall I liked it and its a solid start to this year’s holiday beer journey!

Megan: I’m so happy to be back at it again! In this crazy world, it’s nice to have this holiday tradition to look forward to. This beer is malty and has all of those classic holiday spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. The nice part about this beer is that it’s smooth and easy to drink so I could easily see myself drinking a couple at a holiday zoom party. This was a great way to start the Christmas beer advent-ure!

Brad: Fuggly Sweater has a funny name a cool can but the beer was just ok. It reminded me of Sam Adam’s Winter Lager which I’d happily drink multiple cans of, but wouldn’t necessarily buy it to satisfy a craving. The winter flavors are there, just mild.

Heather: I love a good Fuggly Sweater, and for me, the beer version passes the test. Nothing to knock my fuzzy socks off, but it is exactly the kind of beer I’d joyfully drink throughout a holiday party with friends (ah, remember such things?). The can is fun. The beer is good. It makes my cheeks rosy and my spirit bright. Good kickoff to the Advent-ure!